COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY CONFERENCE RAT GENOMICS & MODELS The rat is a major model system for biomedical research. Since the rat genome project was initiated in 1996, there has been an explosion in the number of genomics reagents (genetic markers, multiple genetic maps, radiation hybrids and their associated maps, ESTs), as well as genomic databases, physiological databases, an animal repository, and most recently, the draft genomic sequence and the development of gene knockouts. These reagents, tools and databases have been developed by international teams, largely funded by the combined efforts of most of the NIH Institutes, with NHLBI leading funding and direction. After extensive discussion with members of the community and with staff at Cold Spring Harbor, the first "rat meeting" was held there in December 1999. The 1999 meeting on "Physiological Genomics & Rat Models" was successful in part because it was the first rat meeting not dominated by a specific disease group, and helped to consolidate the "rat community" of laboratories and investigators interested in applying this model system to their work. The meeting was held again in December 2001 and 2003, and will be held every two years at Cold Spring Harbor for at least the next five years, under the title, "Rat Genomics & Models". This grant seeks support to help offset the costs of this important meeting for the next three meetings (2005, 2007, 2009) to help maintain the continued quality of the meeting by enabling more speakers to be invited, and support junior and minority scientists; thereby allowing the organizers more flexibility in bringing new investigators into this growing field.